Brooklyn, NY
Offbeat Americana
www.odeath.net

O’ Death formed on an artsy college campus located between upstate New York and Brooklyn, so it makes sense that the group’s sound is a comfortable mix of rustic instruments and urban clatter. After fine-tuning its trademark blend of folk, bluegrass, swing, jazz, gypsy-punk and metal in college, the band relocated to New York and quickly honed its live skills by playing 100 shows in 2006 alone. “Sometimes we get into a certain part of a song where we can feel it physically, as well as musically,” guitarist Greg Jamie admits. “It’s important for a performance to have a visual element, but I think we all just try to keep the music as honest as possible.” That honesty is evident on the band’s accomplished 2008 release Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin, a high-energy, 14-track set that contrasts fiddles and banjos with metal and punk riffs. The group also recently spent time working on a split 7" with Murder by Death – which finds the two bands covering each others songs – and kicked off 2009 by announcing a string of high-profile dates with Les Claypool. “Primus is unusual, interesting and hard to define,” Jamie admits. “And I would like to think people would say something similar about what we offer.”